Porcelain Paradise
by LadyAkhana
Summary: CH8 is here, nice and long, too! Life sucks. She has no friends. Her books are the only thing that listen. Art class is the only way to express herself. Her mother is horrid. She wants to get away. Problem is, wishing won't work for Crystal.
1. Tangible Imagination

**Porcelain Paradise by LadyAkhana**

_ Disclaimer: I (sadly) don't own Labyrinth or all related characters. Neek, Blar, and Qinty are iffy, since they're goblins but I decided to characterize them. Go ask Jim Henson people, or Lucasfilm. I'm sure they'd be only too happy to accept ownership of yet SOMETHING ELSE. Until they take my three little goblins, they're mine. Contrary to them, however, Crystal is _ENTIRELY_ mine. _She's **MY **O/C and no one is taking her without permission!

_You have been warned!_

**Prologue: SOC Opening by Crystal**

(A/N: SOC, for all you non-language-arts people, means "stream of consciousness." It's like a narrative, but better, since you get all the character's impressions and thoughts rather than just the actions.)

All of us have a little magic inside. The only thing that matters is what we do with it.

Some of us use our "talents" for practical things like healing—-we become doctors or nurses. Some paint mystical scenes in unbelievable detail; that's the subconscious reminding us of the things that really do exist, if only in our imaginations. Others use it to write vastly delightful books filled with the dragons, unicorns, wizards, sorcerers, and powers in the aforementioned paintings and creating new worlds of their own. People do these good things with it.

Some people misuse their magic. They turn it toward evil purposes like killing, or extortion, or blackmail so well thought out that they get away with it for years. Only those who turn their magic to solving those cases, those detectives and policemen, can stop them.

Still others bottle it up inside and never let it out because we are afraid of what it might do.

Me? I let it out of that bottle whenever I get the chance, in the form of what I have come to call "tangible imagination." Whatever I imagine, if I really want it to, becomes real until I banish it.

Lemme give you an idea: I came home when my mom had just left. I found a note on the fridge telling me she'd be home in an hour and a half; she'd had to run in because a coworker had gotten sick and had to leave early. Immediately, I put my magic to use. Flowers bloomed pink and purple and rainbow from my room's green carpeting. Faeries tended them. Baby dragons alternately lounged and flew throughout, finding the sunlit portion of my carpet a very nice place to rest. I stepped out the back door and whistled for two robins, my best friends. Little sparks of blue and green and pink and white and gold flitted about the room while I used a ball of scarlet fire to cook my pizza for dinner. A can of Pepsi ® opened itself in midair at a snap of my fingers.

My room is rather large for just a seventeen-year-old. Around it, from left to right starting with the door (which is set in the middle of a wall) are a desk, a canopy bed on the far end of the next wall, in the corner. Then there's a window, my makeup table, my dresser, my closet on the next wall with its full-length mirror on one door, shelves of books next to that, and then, on the wall with the door, was my art project, called Porcelain Paradise, because I love puzzles. I can see the whole in the pieces or the pieces in the whole, depending upon what type of puzzle I'm doing. I had done that sculpture for art class, obviously. It now displayed itself on a stand I had made to support it. It was a miniature labyrinth. There were three parts to it: one with walls of stones, a hedge maze, and then a forbidden forest. On the border of the forest and the stone maze was a bunch of green beads in a sculpted hollow, signifying a bog. There was a little bridge to the forest leading from a strip of land leading into that bog from the wall. In the center of this labyrinth was a city, rather small as those go, even in models, and at the heart of that city was a castle. All of it was made out of a certain clay which, when it dries, looks and feels like porcelain, but is not.

It was my representation of what I thought _the_ Labyrinth looked like. Liking puzzles, I had seen the title of that little book and read it. Instantly falling in love with it, I had my inspiration when the teacher asked for a sculpture in art class. So I made a tiny Labyrinth, humming quietly over it after school when the teachers were still there but classes were over. I suppose I had put some of my magic into it, to make it so detailed as I wanted it to be. But I never really had a clear sign that I did, unless it was my singing.

Doubtful. I don't work magic like that. Perhaps it was my imagining it as I worked that did the trick.

At any rate, my room was swarmed with fantastic elements, both flora, fauna, and inanimate, and I was having fun with them. What was unfortunate about the situation was that after an hour, I had finished my dinner and was explaining the concept of walking to the lady robin when my mother walked in.

She had gotten home early because another coworker had shown up early, as I found out soon after the event I am about to describe.

She stopped dead still when she came into my doorway. Nothing left her open mouth for a good ten seconds, in which time I banished everything and sent the two birds winging their way out my open window. When she finally found her voice, it came out in a sort of raspy whisper, as if she had lost or was losing her voice. "What…is…or was…going on around here, Crystal?"

I took a deep breath, certain I was going to be grounded for life. "Mom, let me try to explain. I—-"

"Try to explain? Try? You won't just try—-you'd _better_ explain, because you're about to see nothing but this room for the next full year! And I don't want any childish fairy stories!" She continued under her breath, muttering on about being out of her mind with stress and hallucinating and really needing to take a vacation.

I tried for nigh on five minutes to come up with something that my mother would accept to explain my talents. Every time I started to tell her, I saw that she wouldn't believe it. Finally, I had to give up. There was just nothing I could do. "All right, then, Mother," I said with a sigh. "Nothing I can say will help you believe or accept my talent, so I'll have to take being grounded for a full year. I think that's a little heavy for only having the gift of a tangible imagination, but there's nothing I can do." I sat on my bed and stared at the ceiling. "I'll be down to do the dishes in an hour." In my mind, however, I was planning something very different.

Mom stood there for about thirty seconds trying to decipher exactly what I meant and how I could just give up my case so easily. Normally I was a rather stubborn seventeen-year-old. At length she turned to leave, turning back at the last moment to ask, not quite mockingly but definitely disbelievingly, " 'Tangible imagination?' "

In answer, I conjured a fairy dancing on my hand. It fluttered over to my mother, sitting on her hands for perhaps ten seconds. "All I have to do is imagine it and will it to be so, and it is," I explained feebly. I snapped my fingers and it vanished.

Wild-eyed, my mother quickly left.

I swore for perhaps two minutes before considering what would happen. My mother, I knew, was not above calling the psych ward to pick me up. She hated me; that was God's own truth. I sighed. I had freaked my mother with a single mistake. How was I going to get myself out of it this time?

I read for the next fifty minutes to calm myself down. It was my favorite book, if a little short. "The Labyrinth." Ah, what a good book. I often found myself wishing myself to the Goblin King, just in case it happened to be true. My mother and I weren't on the best terms—more often than not, at each other's throats. But occasionally we had our close moments—once a millennium or so.

Believe me, the bad far outweighed the good. That's why I wished.

It wouldn't work. I don't know whether someone else had to wish me or whether it was because I was an only child and had no older sibling to do it. I didn't even have a younger sibling to wish.

So night after night, I wished myself away, and day after day, I awoke in my bed, the same as always.

Anyway, I went downstairs when my hour was up and stood at the sink turning on the water every forty-five seconds for ten minutes so my mother would think I was doing the dishes. Between every set of faucet-twists, however, I pointed to the rack and another dish vanished from the sink and appeared in it, clean and sparkling like my mom wanted. At the end of those ten minutes, I waved my hand and the dishes went to their proper places in the cabinets.

All right, so I cheated. Who cares? I was getting tired of doing things the mundane way and since my mother knew about them, I figured she could deal with it. After all, she was a mature adult. Since I were only a teenager who could cope with them, why couldn't she?

I turned around to leave and saw my mother standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Damn. I knew right away that she had seen my little trick. Damn again.

"That was fast," she remarked acidly.

I knew she wanted to start something, and by God, I wasn't going to take it. I was going to start it for her. "No shit, Sherlock," I retorted. I couldn't help it. When I'm angry, things seem to pop out of my mouth, but I know perfectly well what I'm saying.

"Watch your language, young lady!"

"Or what, you'll ground me to my room for three years? Four? Five?" I was shouting now.

"Don't you dare mock me!" Her voice had risen as far as mine.

I could be louder, and I proved it. "Are you that so emotionally vulnerable, mother? Hmm? Does everyone have to treat you like the Queen of Sheba, or is it just me?"

"Now see here, young woman! You're going straight to bed after you do your homework and with no supper for a week!"

"Like I'm really gonna do that, Mother. Like that's really going to solve all your problems. Oh, I know! Just kick me out of the house! Go on! Send me to social services like you always wanted to do! Aw, what the hell—-why don't you get it over with and just wish me away!"

"I just might!"

She _had_ to be over the edge to say that. Never in her right mind would she consider that. It was in the realm of fantasy. The rules for wishing someone away weren't the rules of this world. They were the rules of a world without our rules. 

"Well, then? What are you waiting for? Say it! I dare you!"

In a flash Mother's temper got the best of her. "I wish the goblins would come take you away right now! That way I don't have to deal with you!"

"Thank you! Bet you feel better now! Maybe this time it'll actually work!"

Thunder rolled outside and I knew I had nothing to do with it, even if I could summon up an entire thunderstorm. Our conversation dropped to silence as the power went out in our house.

I didn't do that, either.

The moon had risen that night happening to be full. It shone in our glass doors, creating two rectangular patches on the floor divided by the strip of darkness marking the metal frame. A gust of wind blew the doors impossibly open and I felt the tingle in the base of my skull that strong foreign magic brought on—"foreign" being defined as "not mine."

An owl drifted in on that forceful breeze, flying a circle around my mother and I and landing back on the rug before the sliding glass. The shadow grew, and suddenly we found ourselves facing a man dressed all in black—boots, leggings, peasant shirt, vest, gloves, cape, the whole works. The only thing that had color on him was a silver pendant, like a crescent moon melded with a triangle on the outer curve and a large topaz or something stuck in the center of that resulting shape. The two horns were free of any entrapment, possibly tipped in gold. I wasn't concentrating on the pendant, though. What drew my attention, besides the unnerving, almost obscene tightness of the black pants, was the mismatched pair of eyes, one brown, the other green, beneath the exotic eyebrows. His wild, platinum hair was harnessed, for the moment, by a high black collar on the billowing cape. His skin was paler than his hair. As for height, I came up to his eyes.

My jaw dropped, and not just because of the power he exuded. This was—-he was—-I was in the presence of—-I couldn't believe it. The only thing I could think to say was, "You're him, aren't you? You're the Goblin King."

Pain flashed through his eyes and then he nodded. "Yes, I am he." He shot my mother a feral grin. "Your mother wished you away to me." It was more a question than a statement, but the certainty was unmistakably there. "You'll come with me now."

"Where? Who are you," my mother asked tersely. She was at the end of her rope, having dealt with me, been frightened by an unexplained power outage, an owl flying in the room and transforming into a man, and now by someone she must have deemed crazier than me by now. When she got scared, she got angry and defensive.

"My name is Jareth," he said simply, "the King of the Goblins. You wished your daughter away to me; she will go. To get her back, you must make your way through my labyrinth to the castle within thirteen hours. I must suggest we hurry; you're wasting time standing here chatting."

"What? We? Me? What about you, prattling on about all this nonsense?"

"I have my entire life ahead of me. It's only forever." He pulled his gloves on a little more snugly. "Not long at all."

Mother scoffed. "Why would I want to waste my time on a selfish, stubborn thing like her? It's bad enough I have to live with her until she's eighteen. I don't need to run around for her, too." She shrugged, scowling at me. "Go ahead. Take her," she spat, "and good riddance."

She stalked past me into the kitchen to get some aspirin from the medicine cabinet. Jareth put his hand on my shoulder. I saw feathers blow past my face as I felt a strong tingle over my entire body, and then I was standing in the center of a large stone room.

*Beep*

This is LadyAkhana's Author's Note. You have come to the end of the prologue. Thank you for reading.

To leave a message, press the little "Go!" button at the bottom of your screen. To contact me otherwise, please visit my profile. To keep reading, check back when I have received at least five messages. You will be notified. Thank you!

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	2. Introduction and a Proposition

_I am _soooooooooo very sorry_ for no updates in forever!!! Please don't lynch me!!! The school I'm at has a filter that blocks Fanfiction.net, so I can't update during study halls, and I didn't have the time at my vocational school in weeks!!! The library doesn't permit access to zip disks, either, so I can't update there. Only recently did I figure out a way, so I'll be updating a little more frequently, although my next update may not come for two weeks due to Christmas vacation '03, so....._

_Just a few shout-outs before I begin: **Vireyda Magodaly:** Thank you for kicking my butt to update. I have been not only prohibited by means of equipment and time lack, but also because I'm lazy. :) Thanks. **Gema J. Gall:** Thank _you_ for making me update. I hope Vree gets around to your stories someday. One other thing: _NO COMMENTS ABOUT THE CHARACTER, PLEASE!!! THIS IS NOT A MARY-SUE!!! (Unlike, I might add, a few chapters of your _Shayla's Story_ that you constantly replay in your imagination_,_ I think.)_ So there!!! :P_

**Chapter One: SOC by Crystal: Introduction and a Proposition**

This room was part of a castle; I saw so from the large stones that comprised it. A clock was in one corner next to a window. After that was a curved throne with two horns sticking up from the back, sort of like a headrest, with a large, curved gold crown sticking out over it from the wall. Opposite the window was a doorway, with a staircase leading up and to the right. I wondered what was over there, but turned back to my examination of the room. Across from the throne was an arch with a long set of wide, short steps to a set of scaled double-doors at the bottom. I was standing in the fire pit in the center of this room, about a foot and a half lower than the rest of the room and swarmed over with goblins and their mess.

With everyday ease, Jareth had gone over to his throne and was now lounging in it with his left leg cocked up over the corresponding arm. In one hand he toyed with a short riding crop, the pommel of which was a large diamond, or something like it. In the other was a crystal orb. Fitting, I figured. Toying with it the way he was toying with me.

"What's your name," he asked me.

Unprepared for the question, or any conversation, I jerked myself out of my reverie. "I'm sorry, my mind was wandering. What?"

"I asked you your name."

"It's Crystal," I answered.

"Crystal," he echoed. Suddenly I heard him laugh, apparently having caught the ironic allusion as he twirled the sphere on his fingers. In mindless imitation, all the goblins in the room laughed, too. I shook my head for the misfortune of the stupid and their leader.

Stepping out of the fire pit, I went to the window to see where I was. It was too high for me to see on my feet, so I caught the slanted lip of the sill and jumped, pulling myself up onto it. Jareth's head turned toward me—to make sure I wasn't trying to jump, I suppose. I scooted to the edge, tossing my flaming hair out of my face, to find that the window was open, and there were no panes of any kind anywhere. Nor were there shutters. Beyond the edge of the arch, however, was the most breathtaking sight I had ever seen. I am quite certain that, for probably close to thirty seconds, I did not breathe. I started to sway, and then I realized that I had been holding my breath. I let it out carefully as I braced myself against the sides of the window and closed my eyes, taking in another few breaths before I looked again.

When the same sight met my eyes, I twisted away, catching my breath in a gasp. Jareth had come up behind me and taken hold of my waist, one hand on either side of me. "Don't fall, now. We wouldn't want you to die." His voice was so close to me that I started. I turned to look at him, but his face was right next to mine.

I looked out over the landscape a third time, confused and startled. "What is this place," I asked. "It looks just like my 'Porcelain Paradise.' "

"Your what?" But all the blood had drained from my face and I didn't answer. "That is my Labyrinth," he said. "Had your mother chosen to come after you, she would be wandering it trying to find her way here. But as she refused, you are mine—forever."

The situation was just beginning to fully impact itself on me. Dizziness made my vision swim, and not from acrophobia. (A/N: For those of you who don't know, acrophobia is a fear of heights. Remember, Crystal's sitting on the sill of that huge window to the left of Jareth's throne, if you were sitting on it. The window is high up in the throne room, where that goblin caught that chicken during "Dance Magic." [It's in the background and you have to watch very closely. You'll see a round net on a long stick drop down over a chicken. A goblin will have done it, but he's hidden behind Jareth in that shot.] Anyways, I'll stop rambling now and let you get back to the story…sorry!) "So…it was all true…with Sarah," I said, questioning fantasy for the first time.

"Yes," he said, his voice resonating sadness just a few inches away from me. "This is the Underground. You came from Above."

"Oh, my God," I whispered.

Then, contrary to usual behavior, I passed out.

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I awoke in a bed. I knew that much from the softness I felt beneath me and around me. Working a hand out from beneath the covers, I put it to my head. "Where am I," I asked.

"You are in a bedroom," Jareth's voice came to me. He was standing somewhere to my right.

"No shit," I said, feeling testy. At the moment, I didn't care if I upset him. I don't usually pass out and when I do, I feel stupid for having done so. That, in turn, irritates me. I opened my eyes beneath my hand and got used to the light. Taking my hand away, I put it down, bracing myself to sit up. Doing so, I felt marginally better. "What I meant was, where is this bedroom—and don't say 'In my castle,' or you'll be on the floor faster than you can say 'Labyrinth'." I rubbed my hands over my face a couple of times, something I did when I was confused and trying to sort things out, and left my chin resting on one hand.

"Sounds like an interesting proposition," Jareth said, a hint of mischief in his voice.

I threw him a glare. "None of that," I said. "I'm not in the mood to put up with it." I was already starting to think of several unpleasant things to do to him. All it would take was a snap of my fingers or some other physical gesture. That's how I work _my_ magic, but there are as many ways to do it as there are people who use it.

"This room happens to be a floor above my throne room. You remember the window?" I simply nodded. "It's on that side. I think you Above-grounders would call it 'west'."

"I see. Well, I always did like sunset best," I said, trying to make light of the situation.

Jareth merely raised one upswept eyebrow. "For someone so fascinated by fantasy," he said then, "and with such a large imagination, I would think you would have no problem being down in the Underground."

I looked up. "What? Oh. Oh! No, I didn't say 'Oh, my God' because of that." I laughed. "I said it because I knew was about to faint. I'm not the type of girl to just faint like that. I'm not afraid of heights and I really don't mind being Underground, after a fashion, but it does take some adjustment." I blew out a long breath. "I _am_ glad to not have that bitch of a mother breathing down my neck over everything I do. Thank you for that, at least."

"You're welcome," he said.

"Can I at least get out of this bed? I'm feeling a lot better."

"If you want to."

"Thank you. I hate staying in bed when I'm sick. It's not like I'm a complete invalid, but people always make it out like that." I bounded gratefully out on the opposite side of the bed from him. Out of habit, I began to make it.

"What are you doing," he asked.

I looked at him with one eyebrow raised. "I'm making the bed. What does it look like? It would be rude to leave it messed up like that, and untidy, too. Don't you know 'making the bed'?"

He shook his head. "I don't need to sleep except when I'm exhausted from using my magic. Even then, I don't make the bed. It fixes itself when I'm not looking."

I said nothing. I merely finished making the bed, as if to prove a point. Then, something struck me. "How long have I been here? I mean, Underground?"

"Only a few hours—by Underground time, that is."

"Will I change into a goblin after thirteen hours?" I was vaguely frightened at the prospect of having to spend the rest of eternity as a stupid little ugly creature.

He laughed. "Of course not! What made you think that?"

"Well, it's just…I don't know."

Jareth laughed again. "No, I have power over the children because I am the Goblin King. The goblins are in my rule because they were once children. You, however, are no child." His gaze slid over me and met my green eyes again. I very nearly flipped him off. "It is for that reason you must _give_ me power over you, Crystal."

He walked to the door and opened it for me. I walked out, and he followed. As we went down the hallway, under his lead, I asked him another question. "How did you become the King of the Goblins?"

He looked at me in some surprise, as if trying to figure out why I would ask that and to decide whether or not to trust me with the answer. "Well," he said after a time, "I was the first child wished away."

"But how—I mean, if there were no goblins, then…."

"Then how could they take me away?" He scoffed. "The words to send a child away were quite different when there were no goblins."

"What were they?"

"If you'll remember from that little red book that everyone seems to find so much delight in, they were close to the words that didn't work for Sarah." Again the pain in his eyes—but only for a moment.

I recited from memory. " 'Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me.' But there was no king of the goblins, was there? Since you became the first child, there wasn't anyone before you to _be_ the king."

"No. Those words were from many years ago. The words _my_ mother used were far, far older, from a tale told to frighten children into obedience. Stories like that worked back then, rather than daring the children to try to wish like they do today. My mother said them outside of the story and meant them, when she was angry at me…." We paused in the hallway. He closed his eyes, thinking, remembering, what his mother had said. And then it came to him; he passed the words on to me. "And so, I was wished away. Shortly after that, the story changed, and those words never worked again. The story was about the Goblin King taking children away. After several years, the story changed again and became a closer version to the current one, with goblins coming to take the children away rather than the king himself. It has been changing ever since."

"That must have been hard, growing up here without a family."

We had been walking down a flight of stairs, spiraling downward to a landing. Across that landing were more stairs. These were straight; they led down and then to the right. Across from them was another staircase, leading up, with a small window in between. They took the turn to the right, into Jareth's throne room.

The usual chaos was in place, as well as the usual stupidity. Goblins were tormenting chickens and chasing each other around the room, as they always did. As usual, Jareth strode straight over to his throne and proceeded to lounge, amusing himself with a crystal.

As long as he didn't choose to amuse himself by playing with _me,_ I was perfectly fine with that.

And if that were the typical length of his conversations, I was going to have to get out of here. I couldn't _stand_ being here on my own with no civilized people to talk to. Don't get me wrong; Jareth had at least _some_ intelligence….it was just that he was so _arrogant_ and _pigheaded_ and so….so….so like a _male _that he was practically no company at all.

Not to mention that this wasn't my place.

I've always had a profound sense of propriety, and me, here, in the Underground, just wasn't it at all. Sure, I wouldn't mind staying (except that the company was abhorrent), but if I didn't have a computer in front of me for at least two hours a day, I'd go nuts.

Internet is nice.

An idea suddenly struck me. I examined every facet and decided that it would work. After all, I had not only confidence and a mind-set that was likely to be an advantage, not to mention my hidden talent. I liked it here, surrounded by the things of my imagination, but I didn't belong here. Again the everlasting propriety. It just wasn't my world. I would have loved it to be, but I couldn't help feeling out of place and in the way. I treasured having shared that conversation with Jareth; it still shouldn't have taken place. Because of that time, though, I could go back and live in peace knowing that all my beliefs in the fantastic had not been in vain. That was all I would need to be happy. "I have a proposition for you," I said in a no-nonsense voice.

"What kind of proposition," he answered, looking me up and down and meeting my eyes again.

"Don't be an ass," was my reply. He looked taken aback, but I continued before he could say anything. "You let me run the Labyrinth in the allowed thirteen hours. If I solve it, I get to go back Above within three days of that time. If I lose, I stay here…forever. But I get to start whenever _I_ choose," I added. I wasn't about to let him get the upper hand by having me start and not telling me.

He thought about that, rising, clasping his hands behind his back and pacing the room around the fire pit. "Interesting. Do you really imagine you have the means to defy me and solve my labyrinth?"

"I do," I said. Believing was all I needed to do.

"Hm," he replied. After another few paces, he stopped and turned to me. "Very well. I have been lacking for entertainment recently. When would you like to start?"

"Right now."

"That can be arranged." He pointed to the clock.

I looked at it, and saw that the beautiful gilt timepiece sat on a nearby tree limb. Looking back to Jareth, I saw no one. The only sight that met my eyes was one of the Labyrinth stretching nearly interminably on, the castle only a child's toy on the far edge of this side. "Go figure," I told myself. "Well, no sense in wasting time, Crystal."

I walked down the slight slope to the wall, all buttresses and bricks. Purposefully I began to look along it. "If I could only find a door," I said aloud for the benefit of anyone listening. I turned around to "see if anyone's around who could help me," and then back when no one came. Sure enough, there were the doors. At my touch, they swung open.

_So much for difficulty,_ I thought. Keeping my hand along the inner wall, I found an opening about five feet from the doors. "I guess that little worm knew what he was talking about." I happily entered the maze made of pale stone rather than this dark, ominous outer defense.

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I watched Crystal find her way into the Labyrinth with almost no trouble at all. Something about my Labyrinth seemed to like her. That was either good or bad; the labyrinth either wanted her to defeat me or Crystal had some sort of power I didn't know about.

I'd better keep an eye on her, I thought. Something doesn't feel right.

Yeah. That little blue button at the bottom of your screen? That's for reviews. They're nice presents people leave for you that tell you what they think of your story. Please leave some. Play Santa Claus for me this Christmas. :D I LOVE YOU ALL!!!


	3. The Door In The Wall

**Chapter Three: SOC by Crystal: The Door in the Wall**

(A/N: I know that title's probably been used already, but since most of this isn't mine, then it really doesn't matter.)

I turned yet another corner in the maze made of pale bricks. It had probably been a forty-five minutes since I had started, or so, and I had already avoided three groups of goblins and a strangely muttering old man with a hat made from a bird's head. When it saw me, it whispered that I should move on quickly, and warned me not to ask a question. Taking its strange warning to heart, I skirted the way the old man had come. He had gone into an adjacent corridor, after which I had just now turned the corner.

A chicken squawked across my path and I shooed it out of the way. "Go on," I told it. "You don't have to make this in thirteen hours, like I do, so when I'm gone you can walk across here all you want." Obediently, the chicken flapped up to the top of the wall and sat clucking at me. I looked at it with both puzzlement and irritation in my gaze. "Chickens in a labyrinth. Who would have thought?" And I moved on.

Shortly after the chicken, I ran into a dead end. "Oh, blast," I said. I was glad I hadn't thought of saying that it wasn't fair, but instead asked of myself, "How do I get out of here now? I'm stuck."

Then I saw a bunch of strange little puzzle pieces running around, each on two tiny legs. Most had letters on one side, and part of a picture on the other. They were the colors of the rainbow; the colors repeated among them several times. When they took notice of me, they all skittered around and spelled out, _Find the answer._

"Find the answer," I asked. "That doesn't make any sense. What am I supposed to....." I trailed off. They had begun spelling again.

_To your puzzle, this._

I waited this time. Maybe they had more to say.

They did.

_And pass your way._

_Through the Labyrinth._

I repeated what they had said to myself. "Find the answer to your puzzle, this, and pass your way through the Labyrinth." It didn't sound so hard. "All right. What's my puzzle?"

As they spelled it out, I waited, memorizing each word as it came. I put them all together when they had finished. "What has no color but shows every one?" Then a warning. "You have until our puzzle is completed to solve yours." So saying, the lower-left corner piece laid itself down. A moment later, the piece over that one laid down and fitted itself in. I saw at once that there were thirty of them, and they fitted themselves together one per second. I had twenty-eight seconds left. _What has no color but shows every one?_

No color.....Jareth's crystals were clear—but they didn't really show every color.

_Twenty-five seconds._

They prismed it out into the rainbow.

_Twenty._

Black, brown, and white weren't in the rainbow.

_Fifteen._

What showed those colors? Something did.

_Ten._

Colors were simply reflected light. Something reflected everything.

_Five._

"A mirror! A mirror on its own doesn't have any color, but it reflects and shows you every single color you put in front of it!"

_Congratulations,_ the pieces spelled out for me. They jumped into place. Then their puzzle, now complete, stood up, presenting me with a rainbow wall. It backed up on the legs sticking out from its bottom edge against the wall opposite me. The pieces on the inside scrambled around, then, forming a picture of a door against the brick. It seemed almost real!

"What do I do," I asked.

_Enter._

"I can't walk through a wall."

_Yes, you can._

I suddenly remembered the worm and the walls I had passed through on the outer ring. "Of _course! _Thank you," I said. No harm in being polite, I guessed. As I had no other place to go but forward, I grasped the doorknob, turned, and stepped through the rainbow-colored frame into the hedge maze.

Things went more or less uneventfully until I came upon a group of goblins. They had set their spears against the bush wall, so I hadn't seen them until it was too late. "There she is! Get her!"

"Oh, great," I muttered. Now I had to put up with them, too. I did the only thing I could do.

I ran.

_These things are just about to get on my nerves._ I rounded a corner and came face-to-face with another bunch of them. _That's it,_ I thought. _Now I'm mad!_ I sprinted in a different direction from both groups until I came to a wide circle with four other openings. I rounded a sharp corner to the next one counterclockwise and made a second turn after that. I paused to listen for them, snapping my fingers softly enough that my magic was a small green smudge in the painting of the amber magic around me. What they saw was an image of me running down another path, and a second down yet another.

The goblin soldiers were hopelessly lost now; I breathed a little easier. I took the opportunity to rest for five minutes or so; then I went back to the circle and chose the one route the goblins had left untaken.

"The road less traveled," I murmured. Maybe it would bring me good luck.

**End Chapter Three**

(A/N: That's it, folks. At least for now. I've been stuck on this for a while, but since I finally got another idea, I'll try and update more frequently. Sorry this chapter was so short, but I was strapped for time when I wrote it and I hadn't finished the next section, so I had to split it up. bows Many apologies! Will Make Up For It Next Time!

For now, that little blue button at the bottom would greatly speed the process up. Sorry again that I took so long!)


	4. Secrets and Secret Admiration

**Chapter Four: SOC in Two Perspectives: Secrets and Secret Admiration**

(A/N: Not much here...it may be kind of short...I swear I have longer chapters. Thing is, though, that I've had ideas for the beginning, and ideas for the end, but no way to put them together. There's a lot more written to this story than what's actually here. In my document, this ends at page 11 of 48. I just need to get from 12 to 13 without turning it into a total bomb.

Anyway, keep going. There's (slowly but surely) more to come. When I've gotten a good connector, I'll let you know. Then you can expect faster posts.

Even better? I'll have quasi-regular access to a computer with a zip disk from now on. Woohoo! Updates on a semi-consistent basis!

Oh, the !-!-!-!-!-!-! thing means there's a change of perspective.

And yes, updates on Sannovan's Secrets are coming. Probably the day after tomorrow.

Read on!

--Akhana)

Good luck? Not really. Actually, it brought me into a large forest. Glitter was everywhere, and cobwebs hung like curtains from the trees. It creeped me out, but I consoled myself with the almost-certain knowledge that I could burn my way out if I had to.

I heard some weird music off to my left; I avoided it. Fireys lived in the area. That strange crap they call music was a trademark of a firey camp. I wondered in some spare moments why they spelled it wrong. The word for the creature, "firey", was misspelled if they intended "fiery", the adjective. They were an icky pink-red-orange color, after all.

As luck would have it, I met a toad along the way. I coaxed it to stay still as I bent down to rub his little bumpy head. "Aren't you so cute," I commented. "You're not very pretty, but pretty doesn't count when it's your heart that matters."

He actually answered me. "Thank you," he said politely.

"Goodness," I said, startled. I nearly fell over. "You can talk!"

"Yes, I can. Most people state the obvious, of course, but it's only polite to be polite and agree."

I nodded, quickly charmed by this odd little amphibian. "So what's your story?"

"Well, I happen to be one of the random inhabitants of this place, like the worm at the outer wall, or the dwarf out front, or the little fox terrier guarding the bridge over the Bog of Eternal Stench. But that's if you're stupid enough to fall down a hole in the castle wall. Anyway, I'm just here to be here. I have no real purpose."

"Oh. Well, what about the fairy tales? Are they true at all?"

"No, not really. I don't remember any curse or spell placed on me, but that doesn't mean there isn't one."

"That's true," I said. "At least, by my logic." I sighed. "Would you like me to kiss you and we can find out? It's the least I can do for such a nice toad."

"You'd do that?"

"Yes, as long as you've bathed recently. I won't kiss a dirty toad."

"Just an hour ago," he confirmed.

I smiled. "Well, okay."

And for the record, yes, I did kiss the toad. He wasn't enchanted, but he was kind and very polite. I suppose I should have guessed from the lack of a crown on his head, which, as I recall, was dry and bumpy, but he was the cutest little thing I'd seen in my entire trek. He made the worm look weird, in my opinion. But then, the worm had no fashion sense, so...

"What's the deal with this place," I asked, not really expecting an answer. I'd long since given up on there _being_ a classifiable deal with this place. Can you say "issues"? There. I knew you could.

I stood up to stretch my legs; I needed to start moving again. I had no idea how much time I'd spent sitting there, nor how much time I had left. The toad hopped up onto a tree stump to talk to me.

"I'll tell you the deal with this place," he said, "since you were nice enough to kiss an ugly toad like me. The secret here isn't that things aren't fair, or that they're not always what they seem to be, although those two statements do tend to be true around here. The secret really is that things only happen when you're not looking."

"But I can't look everywhere at once!"

"That's why things keep happening."

"But that's not fair!"

"Who said things had to be fair," a new voice asked.

I whirled around to face the King of the Goblins. He wore all black, as the first time I had seen him, with a cape of stars and midnight. The high collar pushed his platinum hair forward somewhat; it was all I could do to quell the reaction to want to brush it out of his beautifully mismatched eyes.

The choker around my neck glittered and the jewel upon it burned into me as if it were glowing in the forge. The sudden pain snapped me out of the reverie; anger matched its fire that I should have been ensnared like that. Jareth was very suave.

Realization hit me like a Mack truck. His magic was subtle, designed to creep under your defenses and undermine them from within. The most unnerving of anything was when things changed when you weren't looking—or in Jareth's case, when people appeared. After all, you could only look so many directions at once. Well, I decided, I'd not let myself be fooled again. Now that I knew his secret, I could more readily defend myself.

I set about that very task. "No one," I admitted.

"So—"

"So things are allowed to be unfair," I said over him, cutting him off. "Yes, I know." I laughed as if an enormous joke had just been made, which it had—on him. "Just like this." I snapped my fingers and thunder rolled. With a smile far beyond the wicked one he had given me, I called lightning down to my palm. It gathered in a little ball, which I simply held. Tendrils of energy crackled between my fingertips, trying to get out. I wondered vaguely what to do with it even as I flung his contempt back in his face. "Oh, yes, your Majesty. There are things I can do that you could not even dream of. All the same, vice versa. You rule a kingdom and the maze that forms it. I happen to be a young woman who can control my imagination and, consequently, what it produces." I snapped my fingers and the tingling sphere vanished. "Mortals who walk these paths are supposed to be defenseless and powerless: unlike them, whom the Labyrinth was designed for, I have power. So, no—things are _not _fair. As you have stated, they do not _have_ to be, so they will not _always_ be."

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

I was speechless. No one had ever said anything like that to me, and no one had ever flaunted power in front of me. More to the point, no one had ever had power to flaunt. While people may have been defiant, they had not been outright impertinent. "Who...are...you," I asked, having more than a little trouble speaking. This young woman fascinated me more than Sarah had. Granted, Sarah had come through quite a while ago, and granted, I still pined for her although she had turned me down, but that was fading in the presence of this spirited woman.

And she had magic. Magic, oh, that most enticing of elements, gave her aura an irresistible draw. Time and again I found my gaze drifting her way, or an impulsive desire to challenge her, to test her. To see how far I could push her before she broke control and revealed that gift which made her living aura crackle and pulse with rainbow colors. To see her so beautifully angry and to watch her green-jewel eyes flash as she delivered another speech with her musical voice.

I pulled my emotions into check. Now was not the time to go daydreaming about what I could have if I twisted my advantages, nor to reminisce about what I could have had if Sarah had chosen to stay. I grew upset with myself for the emotional turmoil, and it found an outlet toward Crystal.

I smiled as if nothing had fazed me. "No, they aren't fair. I could easily overpower you now." I began to circle her, something I knew she found irritating. "But no. I want to see how you fare with the challenges I present you. Can you defeat them?" From behind her, I moved to whisper in her ear. "Can you defeat _me?"_ Coming around to her front again, I said, "You may try, Crystal. You may try with all you can. But in the end, it will not be enough. Try to defeat _this!"_

So saying, I threw a crystal behind her. She turned to follow its path and I vanished.

What I left was quite..._interesting._

(And that's all for now, folks!! You see that little blue button down there at the bottom of your screen? The one that says "Go!"? That's for reviews. Reviews Happy Authoress Inspiration Typing Updates. Following the laws of mathematics, Reviews Updates.)

Until next time!

--Akhana


	5. Thoughts

**Chapter Five: Thoughts**

"That sneaky…arrogant…overbearing…jerk!" I managed to fling insults between gasps for breath. Jareth's little surprise for me had been some sort of strange machine with blades looking to chop me up! It was fast and maneuverable, but incredibly deadly, meaning I either had to stay ahead of it indefinitely or outmaneuver it—which I knew I couldn't do—or I had to hide from it.

As I rounded yet another corner to double-back on myself, I squeezed my eyes shut, wished _really_ hard for a flight of steps, and managed not to trip on them when I could see again. I dashed up as fast as I could and turned around to watch when it arrived. Since it had wheels, it couldn't make it up the steps. "Piece of cake." I jumped down into another avenue of bricks, grateful for a chance to let the runner's stitch in my side go away.

But something was very strange. I couldn't feel anything. You know that feeling when you're sick and your head feels like it's stuffed with cotton? That's what it was like. Strangely numb, I wondered why I couldn't feel my magic.

Suddenly I felt an electric-type jolt. It wasn't tangible. It was some sort of psychic-feeling storm. Then the lightning hit. Talk about _real._ It felt like everything everyone had ever said. The pain was white-hot and intense. Just before I passed out, when everything was still hazy and moving weirdly, I thought, _I gotta learn to stop saying that._

A soft touch like suede on my cheek caused me to shiver. It receded at my reaction, but soon returned. It stroked my cheek for quite a few moments before a velvet voice whispered, "Wake up. Wake up, Crystal. You must wake up."

The voice—I recognized the white-chocolate sound—drew me up from the depths of black unconsciousness gently. It was as if I headed to a light, a light shaped like a sphere. And the one holding that light was rolling it about him effortlessly. When he saw me, he held it out.

"Jareth?"

"Yes, Crystal. It's Jareth. Wake up." She looked sharply at him; his mouth hadn't moved. "Crystal." I clearly heard the voice, but it came from the orb in his hand. I peered cautiously into it. The voice drew me into the crystal of light with every word. Pain increased the further I went in. The voice got more urgent. "Wake up, Crystal. You must wake up or _you will die."_

Light suddenly exploded in my vision. I closed my eyes against it, crying out at the hurt it caused.

"Crystal."

"Jareth," I managed. My mouth was very dry, for some reason. Pain flooded my body, also making it hard for me to speak.

"It's me, Crystal. Open your eyes. Please." Again came the napped-leather touch, this time on my brow.

"I can't. It hurts. Everything hurts."

The touch disappeared for a moment, and then a hand cradled my head, tilting it up. I grimaced and let out a soft, pain-filled exclamation. "I know it hurts," he murmured. "Drink this." The cool edge of a metal cup touched my lips.

"What is it?" Despite desperately wanting something to make me feel better, I wasn't about to take poison. I was suffering, not stupid.

"It will make you feel better."

Something in his voice made me trust him, and I began to sip at the cup. He tipped it so I could drink more easily. It was like sugar water without the grainy texture from the sugar. As the sweet liquid flowed down my throat, I could feel waves of warm strength sweeping through me. The pain faded even as the power and light rushed in to exist where it had been. I sat up, dimly aware of Jareth's hand assisting me. Lifting my arms to the cup, I took hold of it with both hands. I drank greedily. The clarity I felt in the potent liquid almost overwhelmed me. When I finished, I lowered the cup and pursed my lips, savoring the lingering sweetness one moment more. I finally opened my eyes to look down at the vessel. It was merely a golden chalice, the sort one thinks of when reading a medieval tale where kings, knights, and lords toast their heroic deeds and fair ladies.

My gaze drifted up to the Goblin King, who still had one hand on my back. His eyes caught mine. "What was that," I whispered, unable to speak louder.

"That," he replied, equally as soft, "was water of the Underground. Not something one drinks everyday. It heals with incredible power and restores magic. It also tends to make one feel stronger, invincible. The invincibility, of course, is merely a psychological effect, one the Labyrinth seems to enjoy playing tricks with, which might explain why some of the goblins do some of the stupider things they do. I don't often let anyone have as much as I have given you. But you needed it."

"What happened?" I looked around. We were in a sunnier, less intimidating part of the forest than Sarah had passed through almost four years ago. "How did you get me out of that…place?"

Jareth took the cup when I offered it back to him. He put it on the ground behind him. "An outside force came into the Labyrinth and assaulted you. I found out about it and saved you before it could kill you. As a result, your thirteen hours and their rules have been put on hold. I have to deal with this and I simply cannot enjoy watching you attempt to solve my maze if I am distracted to fend it off at the same time." He said it as if it were commonplace, the arrogance of the king showing through. "Come." He rose, offering a hand to help me, and I took it. When I had stood, however, he did not release it.

"Come where," I asked a bit stupidly. My wits had to catch up with the rest of me; I blamed it on the drink Jareth had given me. I _did_ notice that the cup he had set down earlier was gone.

"To my castle, of course," he said, surprised that I should ask. He tossed a crystal in the air. My eyes followed it. The glint as it caught and reflected the sunlight was dazzling; my vision was erased by its brightness. I removed my hand from Jareth's and rubbed my eyes. When I could see again, the sight that met my eyes was one of the throne room, swarming with goblins as usual.

Well, I assumed I was going to be here for a while, so I figured I had best find a place out of the way, and one that I liked. I walked around the far side of the room from Jareth to get to the window like I had the first time. I'm quite sure he didn't even notice me. But when I made it up onto the windowsill again, scaring off a chicken in the process, he said, without even looking up, "Don't fall off. And don't faint again. Last time I caught you and took you all the way up to that room. Next time you may just have to recover on the floor."

I situated myself with my back against the right side of the window; my right leg I brought up to my chest, and my other I left hanging down. "Don't worry," I shot back, "not that you would. I have my nerves under control. You may end up being the one who has to recover."

He glared at me from those mismatched eyes. After a moment, just to be spiteful, I stuck my tongue out at him. He was up from his throne in a flash, indignation flaring in his voice. "How dare you!"

I merely laughed as he tried to recover his dignity and turned my gaze out the window. Staring out over the Labyrinth, I found myself beginning to think. The subjects of my contemplation ranged greatly, from speculation about what my new life would be like when I was done with the Underground maze to what the Labyrinth held to what kind of stone the castle was made of (it almost looked like sandstone) to how long I was going to have to stay here.

Slowly my gaze turned inward, to the throne room. As my point of focus shifted, so did the focus of my thoughts. Eventually, of course, my eyes settled upon the indolent form of the King of the Goblins.

I considered many things about him, such as how his eyes had come to be mismatched—one brown, the other, green—or how his hair had become platinum blonde. I thought about what it must have been like for him, growing up without parents or family like I had suggested earlier, or how his subjects had come to be goblins when he had survived as a humanoid. At length I found myself considering his attire—why he wore clothes like that and seething over the fact that his pants had to be almost offensively tight (I almost even promised myself to do something about that when I had the opportunity to practice my magic again. It would be funny to see him in a pair of pantaloons.)—and his jewel-handled riding crop. And finally, his strange amulet.

The topaz in the center of Jareth's odd pendant somehow represented something. Given, it changed slightly in shape and function to match his various outfits, but it was more than that. Power it wasn't; his intelligence gave him that. His status? Probably not; as with his power, he didn't need a visual reminder. Magic? Maybe, but it didn't seem to fit his style, having a pendant to hold his magic. That was an inborn talent, not something one collected or acquired.

Out of sudden worry, I checked to make sure that my choker was still where it was supposed to be. The sculpted silver band still encircled my neck, with its oval emerald resting right in the center, down into the hollow of my throat. I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to my musing.

All of us have a little magic inside of us; it just depends on how it manifests itself. _That_ depends on what we like to do. We do what we like to do, and that's how we use our magic. One of Jareth's talents, if not the only one, was subtlety. But he could show his magic in other ways, if he wanted to. Like arrogance. He probably did.

He caught me staring. When I became aware that he was watching me watch him, I blinked and met his eyes. One of his exotic eyebrows lifted. I responded with a half-shrug of indifference I really didn't feel and turned my gaze back out the window. Hm. So he wasn't completely as "gone" as I thought. Granted, his attention was elsewhere, but he still had an awareness of what was going on around him. Sort of like me sometimes, I reflected.

I figured he had a lot of questions for me; I had plenty for him. Neither of us wanted to start asking right away, as it would seem rather intrusive—I guessed he had at least _some_ sense of courtesy. I watched the sun set as I thought of what I wanted to ask him. Noticed but not registered, the stars began to show themselves, and the crystal moon rose, nearly drowning them out. I sat bathed in the bluish light for quite a while, uncaring of the darkness over the Labyrinth or that inside. There were torches inside, and torches marked the doors of the little goblin houses below. Here and there, candles poked through the windows, betraying the little people still awake. But beyond the Goblin City, everything was black. I would hate to be out there, where anything and everything could catch one off guard. Who even knew what sort of things lurked in the dark that didn't come out during the day?

So deep in thought was I that I didn't really notice anything until the clock struck eleven behind me. I started, jerking my head around. Noticing the movement, Jareth looked up. "Oh, so you are still alive. Here I thought you'd frozen in place."

"The sarcasm is quite overdoing things," I replied tartly. "But I wouldn't mind a room. I _am_ a guest, after all."

"Of course." He rose and gestured for me to follow him. So I hopped down from my perch and crossed the room after him. Up the first small flight of stairs, we turned to the left, the way we had come before. This time we went up a spiral staircase. The landing had either vanished or a separate staircase had replaced that one. Knowing what I did about the Underground, I didn't really care. When we reached the top, he opened the door and stood aside for me to enter first. I did so; he came after me.

We stood in a well-furnished apartment. On the floor were several large carpets in soft tones scattered among a wooden desk and chair, a mahogany wardrobe, a canopy bed with its curtains and covers matching the carpets, a window, and a door on one wall.

"The door on the wall opposite us is the one to your bath, and the one we just entered leads to the hallway. At the end of that hallway and down the spiraling stairs is my throne room. But don't ever go up the staircase opposite the spiral, to the left."

"Why not," I asked.

"Don't defy me, Crystal," he warned. "But to answer your question, you will find yourself lost in the Escher Room. You might not find your way back out again."

"Is that the room with the stairs?"

"Yes."

"How did Escher come up with the idea to paint 'Relativity'? Was he wished here as a child, and the memories inspired him from his subconscious?"

"I expect so." Jareth shrugged. "Many children have come and a few have been lucky enough to be rescued. He may have been one of them. Dinner, since you still need to eat, will be brought to you. If the goblins give you trouble, let me know. I'll deal with them."

"No, that's okay for tonight." I yawned, covering it politely. "I'm just tired."

He shrugged again. "Suit yourself."

"Where will you be? In case I need to find you, that is."

"In my throne room, of course. Where else would I be?"

"Well, you could be out in the Labyrinth, and I couldn't go there, so…."

Jareth made a thoughtful sound. "I see. Here." He tossed me a crystal that he pulled from inside his jacket. "If you need me, call to me with the crystal."

I looked at the crystal and back and he was gone.

As for me, I wasn't going to sleep in my clothes. I went to the wardrobe, to see if anything I could find was for me. To my satisfaction and surprise, I found not only some clothes from my closet back home, but also some for the Underground. I ignored everything but the green silk nightgown and robe that he had provided for me for the time being, although I vaguely wondered how he had known my size, because it fit perfectly. I reveled in the luxurious feeling of the smooth, feathery fabric against my skin.

Now, I won't blame him without proof, but I suspected that the crystal was a spying tool. As such, I made sure to dress on the far side of the bed from it, after closing the curtains on the crystal's side and the foot. The crystal didn't come around to peek, which put another point in Jareth's favor. The tally was still slightly against him than for. Once I washed my face in the sink and brushed my teeth with the toothbrush and toothpaste that had been on my sink back home, I hung my robe on the peg I imagined on the wall next to my bed. Yes, I know it was stone, but to the power of imagination, what can stand?

I climbed onto the bed and was elated to find it so fantastically soft. I swore it had to be a featherbed. The pillows were goose down, but not the sort that mold when you put your head into them. They were airy and light, absolutely fantastic. The covers were warm and soft, and I found myself asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow, to use a cliché.

I did not dream.


	6. Awakening, Anger, and Memories

**Chapter Six: Awakening, Anger, and Memories**

I awoke to the sound of feet scurrying around my room. Muttering ensued. I sat up, and a little raspy voice, having heard me, quickly hushed the others. "Shut up! We don't want to wake her! He'd be angry with us!"

Immediately the talking ceased. I pulled the blankets to my chest and opened the curtains to my left a little, from whence the voices had come. "Hello," I said softly, trying not to startle them. Even so, all but three vanished instantly by diving under my bed or other furniture. Some jumped into the wardrobe.

"Oop!" One of them smacked another over the head. "I told you to be quiet! Now we're all going to get thrown into the Bog of Eternal Stench!"

"We're sorry," a smaller one said in a small voice. He clearly expected Jareth to appear at any moment to throw him into the Bog.

I smiled. "That's all right. I don't mind. I'm actually glad you all woke me up. I wouldn't want to spend all morning in here like a slugabed. What are you doing in my room, though?"

"His Majesty told us to bring you breakfast," the one who had been smacked said.

"You didn't have to do that," I told him. "I can manage my own breakfast."

"Yes we did," the first said. "Otherwise His Majesty would have thrown us in the Bog."

"Well," I replied, "I'll just have to have a talk with His Majesty, then. Would you hand me my robe, please? It's there on the peg in the wall."

Obediently, the second goblin, the one who had the tiny voice, went over to the wall and retrieved my robe.

Once I had put it on, I stepped out of the bed and into my green slippers, which matched my nightgown. They were the kind that looked like actual slip-on shoes, not the flip-flop kind. Anyway, I moved toward the little table that had appeared in the middle of my room and lifted the cover on a rather large silver tray. "Goodness," I murmured. Beneath the cover was a perfect plate of ham, bacon, pancakes complete with butter and syrup, eggs, and sausage.

"Do you like it," one of them asked. I think it was the third one, who had been hit by the first.

"Yes," I said absently. "It's far too much for me, though. I couldn't eat it alone." An idea came to me. "Why don't you share it with me. Have you eaten yet?"

"Well…." The first one started to say something, but trailed off. None of the others would answer.

"Well what?" I looked at each of them in turn. "What is it?"

The stupid third goblin looked at me. "His Majesty would be angry at us. He'd think we stole it."

"And we'd go to the Bog," the second added.

"Before we can blink," the first finished.

Indignation heated my blood. Jareth would do that over something so trifling?! Not while I could do something about it, I firmly resolved. I forced myself to appear calm before the three scared little goblins. "Nonsense," I said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Now come over here and take a seat, all three of you. You're going to help me eat my breakfast." From behind my back, I produced three small plates, which I proceeded to fill with portions of my all-too-large serving and placed in front of them. They scrambled into their seats. "Here. Now, let's eat." I smiled at them as they took forks and began to stuff themselves.

Although on my manners, which I used except when I was at home merely to irritate my mother, I couldn't help taking larger bites than propriety allowed. After all, the food was good, and I was hungry. And when all four of us had sat back in satisfaction, I thanked them. "You did a very good job of bringing me my breakfast, and I'd like you to do it again. Every day. Will you?"

Three goblin heads bobbed ecstatically. "Yes," three voices chimed at once.

"What are your names?"

"I'm Neek," the first one proclaimed.

"I'm Blar." The third one, a bit stupider than the others, stated.

"My name's Qinty. And thank you for sharing your breakfast," the small-voiced second said a bit shyly.

I laughed quietly. "You're welcome. Now off with you, if you don't mind. I have to dress myself." I threw a covert glance at the crystal still hovering in the corner of my room.

They got down from their chairs and gathered up the dishes on the platter. One opened the door, and the other two carried the tray between them. The one holding the door bowed before he left, and the door clicked shut behind him.

Glad to be alone again, for a while at least, I opened my wardrobe and looked through the clothes there. I didn't feel like wearing anything from back home, believe it or not, so I picked a simple medieval-type gown of green with a close bodice and loose, long, flaring sleeves. The skirt flared to my feet with a short train behind and the back laced up.

That presented a problem. I still had to wear a full slip beneath it and I wasn't about to let it show through the laces in the back. That's just plain embarrassing. So I closed my eyes, imagined there was a zipper instead, and ran my hand up the laces. Sure enough, when I opened them again I saw my hand at the top of a zipper track. "There." At least I knew my magic still worked. I had half-feared that Jareth had somehow found a way to disable it overnight. He _had_ mentioned that he didn't sleep, and that left him with plenty of spare time.

And I proceeded to dress myself. I even found a fitting pair of silver shoes to go along with the dress on the bottom of the wardrobe. _Someone sure thinks of everything,_ I thought.

I pulled my hair into a pile on my head in a series of clips and hairpins and admired the effect in the full-length mirror on the inside of the left wardrobe door.

The choker I wore presented another problem. The thick band of silver with its oval emerald would not do for this dress. The neckline was simply too high. The more I looked at it, the more I thought that an armband over the left sleeve would look better. I unclasped it and then set it over my left upper arm. Before I had finished closing the clasps, it had shrunk to match the shape of my arm. Whatever I did with it, it always fit me. I have used it as a bracelet, a ring, a choker, and now an armband. It always was with me no matter what form it took, like—

I stopped and froze, staring at the full-length mirror before me. One hand was still on the armband.

Like Jareth's pendant.

"But what does it mean," I asked myself aloud, walking into my bath. I pulled my sleeves back, brushed my teeth, and remembered what the little goblins had said.

That was right: I still had to deal with Jareth.

Anger fueling my resolve, I stepped out my door and onto the spiral staircase that led down to the throne room. The jewel on my arm grew warm; I could feel it through the velvet dress. Mustering my courage once more, I stepped onto that little landing between my staircase and Escher's and faced the throne room.

"_JARETH!"_

All chaos in the room ceased instantaneously, even as the clock struck one on my appearance as though it were enchanted, or I were. Every head of every goblin turned my way, and that of the Goblin King. Like the pandemonium, everyone stopped. Silence pervaded, save the occasional squawk of a chicken.

My head snapped up from its focused bow. Crystal stood in the arch of the landing between the two staircases, framed in the morning light shining in through the window behind her. She was beautiful. The burnished copper of her hair shone and her skin seemed to glow. The green of her eyes, angry and full of fire, matched exactly the emerald tone of her velvet gown. They speared mine, pinning me to my throne—not that I would have been able to stand anyway. My heart stilled like everything else in the room. I swear that for a few seconds, even the clock on the wall stopped ticking.

When it finally began beating again, my heart began to hammer, sending hot blood rushing through me. Something in the aura of her presence belied anger, strength, and steel. She did not move, but with steadfast command and a trace of mockery in her voice, said evenly, "A word, O Mighty King."

Unable to resist her authoritative presence and beauty, I beckoned her in, straightening on my throne in attempt to match her regal bearing. "Leave us," I ordered the still-immobile goblins. When they did not move, I said it louder. "Go!" They sprang into action, hurrying for the arch opposite my throne. When the room was empty save the two of us, various chickens, and the residual mess of the ugly creatures, Crystal started down the steps.

Though not a queen, she very much seemed like one. Either she had a flair for the dramatic, she was accustomed to behaving this way, or the anger I sensed in her lent her the decorum. She would make a better queen than Sarah might have.

Sarah.

I shoved the name and face away, along with the idea. I did not need thoughts of either that girl or this one—or any young woman, for that matter—as my queen to invade my thoughts. I had two people trying to make their way through my labyrinth; two had wished on me overnight. They were the kind who would not be affected by the magical force interfering with the Labyrinth. Left to its own devices, it is a rather formidable tool. But armed with my cunning mind and the subtlety of my magic it is nearly impossible. Few exist who could best it. Because they didn't have magic, whatever it was that had invaded my realm wouldn't target them, so I had let them run the Labyrinth. With this distraction, the voyagers through my land would get a respite. They probably needed one.

"What is it you want," I asked. I was rather impatient to get back to my entertainment. It was not often people came nowadays, and even less often that two at once wandered through the Underground. I also had to make sure the Labyrinth didn't let them meet each other, though if they did it would soon separate them again.

Crystal strode across the far side of my throne room, pausing beneath the clock to look at me. "Am I to understand that you threatened the little goblins who came in to deliver my breakfast this morning? Did you threaten them if they woke me up?"

"Yes. You looked like you needed sleep, and I won't have them being rude to guests." I couldn't believe my own feeble excuse. Where was my head?

I was amazed at how powerful her aura was. Did she have some sort of hidden power trying to work its way out? The power she had described to me didn't seem to work the way whatever was working now did. I wondered about it briefly, returning my attention to the situation.

(A/N: You know how you always argue with your parents, accusing them with _questions_ even though you don't realize it? This is it.)

When she spoke again, it was with the heat of anger. "Threatening them with the Bog?! Did it ever occur to you, _Your Majesty_, that maybe I _wanted_ to be woken up? That maybe I don't want the luxury of sleeping in forever, as you might have if _you_ slept? And I suppose you never considered that a mortal young woman like me couldn't eat all that food. So why wouldn't I give some of it away? Why would you punish them if they ate? Or if they didn't bring me my breakfast? What if I didn't _want_ to have breakfast served on a silver platter? What if I want to make it myself?"

If she hoped to overwhelm me with questions, she was gravely mistaken. I rose from my throne, towering over her on the top step in my vehemence. "Are you angry with me because I simply thought to do something for you? I was making sure you got all the rest you wanted, and I wanted you to be able to have something to eat when you woke up. The goblins don't get the point unless you reinforce it with something like a threat. So _if_ you are finished with your pointless little tirade, I've work to do."

"No, I am _not_ finished," she yelled. I heard a door slam somewhere, punctuating her stressed word. I looked about and found that every entrance or exit had been sealed off by a rather large door. Save the torches within, there was no illumination. Even those guttered a little.

I knew that I could simply vanish, but since my talent preferred that she not be looking, that was impossible. Her eyes were locked on me, effectively trapping me.

Her voice was soft now, but still insistent. "I can understand your need for getting the point across, but if it concerns me, I'll not have it done by threats. If I hear about it from anyone—Neek, Blar, and Qinty included and _especially_ them—I'll make you wish you had never come for me."

Thunder rolled in the distance and I mentally commented on the odd coincidence of it with her statements. I knew plenty of ways she could make me miserable, and I'd be powerless to stop it, more or less. She was a woman. They had endless resources. Coincidences surfaced in my head. Come to think of it, she might have some that I didn't know about.

Damn. She'd cornered me.

"Very well, I'll not threaten them again—at least where it concerns you. But you will not accuse me unfairly, do you understand?"

"I understand perfectly well."

She looked to continue, but I interrupted. "Good. Now—" Here I unblocked the exits. I vanished wherever I could go while she blinked, adjusting to the light.

I found myself standing in a stone clearing surrounded by hedge walls. A fountain with a spout of an owl on a tall tree branch murmured merrily in the center; I went and sat on the edge, to let it soothe me.

I was glad to escape from Crystal's wrath. While she was beautiful even in the midst of delivering a blistering insult, I couldn't stand it. She was just as stunning, even more so than Sarah, to whom I had offered everything. And she had the power of enchantment. If I had realized that when I had taken her, I wouldn't have done so. But her sudden tirade this morning merely flaunted all these facts, whether she was aware of it or not.

Though I had loved—still loved—that dark-haired young woman with the hazel eyes, she had not loved me in return, and my heart had been broken. I swore it would stay so forever, or until Sarah came back. But she never did. I never heard her call upon me again, not for anything. Occasionally I would go Above and see that she was living her life, growing up, forgetting about me.

Only once did she acknowledge me, acknowledge everything that had ever happened Underground in my Labyrinth. That had been at her wedding.

+Flashback+

_I went to my window and looked out over the darkening labyrinth. It was a lonely night, as they all are. Feeling further out of sorts than usual because of a worse day with the goblins, I decided to ease my troubles with a soothing flight. I spread my arms and melted into the form of a snowy owl._

_Once I took to the air on my soundless wings, I could feel the wind running through my soft feathers. Happiness became mine, if only for the cares as king that I left behind. Into the crystal moon I flew. I emerged in the Above world moments later, to find myself over a church._

_Because of my attachment to Sarah, I came Above wherever she was. Normally it was over her house, because she was sleeping, or someplace normal for an Above-grounder. Seldom, if ever, was it a church. Especially at night. I circled down and found my way in an open stained-glass window, settling on the sill._

_At an altar, before the priest, I saw a woman in white and a man, with a group of their friends arranged about them. Hundreds of people were seated behind them, watching expectantly. White and pastel draperies were everywhere, matching the clothing of most of the people._

_I guessed it was a wedding. I had heard of such mundane practices. Deliberately ignoring the pair at the altar, I scanned the crowd with my keen eyes. Nowhere was Sarah to be seen. My worst fears were confirmed when I flew to the front of the church and looked at the face of the bride, still veiled._

_She noticed the movement and looked up, past the priest and straight into my eyes. Although an owl, my brown-and-green gaze was hardly to be overlooked. I hooted in misery. Only she knew what it meant; the preacher made a comment about the owl wanting to add his blessing. The crowd laughed, but Sarah held out her wrist for me to alight upon. I did so, startling probably everyone there. I took great care not to pierce her skin or her sleeve with my sharp talons. She lifted her veil with one hand, setting it back for the time being. "I'm sorry," she murmured to me, stroking my feathered chest with one delicate, lovely finger. "It's time to let go. To let _me_ go. Someone else will come, I'm sure of it. I should not have denied you like I did. I learned many things that day, and I made many friends. You were among them, although it may not have seemed so. You taught me what it was to grow up. I freely admit that it was true, as was what I said that day. I could not have done it otherwise._

"_I have let go of everything. It is time you do the same. You must learn to live without me." She smiled wanly, tears starting to build in her eyes. "It's only forever," she whispered through those tears, echoing me. She held me to her cheek with a hand on my back in a version of an embrace. "It's not long at all."_

_And with that, she kissed me on my little black beak and raised her arm. I spread my pinions and lifted off, circling over the pair once before rising to the ceiling. I gave a last haunted, grieving cry as they said, "I do," and was gone._

+End Flashback+

And so my days became immersed in the Labyrinth, testing and tormenting everyone who came to it. I once felt a curious stretching of my magic, a joining of the Labyrinth with something else. Then a woman who had never even thought to believe in anything but what she could see and touch called upon me, rather strongly. They were the right words; I was drawn Above.

Because of the strength of the wish, I had been called personally; otherwise, my goblins would have taken care of it by themselves. The little idiots run around a corner and when the wishers turn it, they find themselves standing in my labyrinth. Hoggle meets them just standing there as he tends his work, to introduce them to the challenge.

It was to collect Crystal that I had gone, whom I now had to endure. The words she had spoken were echoes of Sarah's when she had first seen me. But this one was not a child, like Sarah had been; I had no power over her and she would not become either a goblin or my queen until she gave me that.

_No! Forget about her becoming your queen,_ I sternly told myself._ That place belongs to Sarah and none other! Sarah will hold that place in your heart if not by your side!_

Grimly I went about my duties as King of the Goblins and the Underground. I used the current travelers as excuses to forget about Crystal and Sarah both. I wanted to think of neither, for a small, precious while. And that was exactly what I did.


	7. A Surprise for the Goblins

**Chapter Seven: A Surprise for the Goblins**

I rubbed my eyes clear to see that Jareth had vanished again. As a result, I spent several minutes cursing him and even inventing new swear words. Yes, we had reached a tentatively mutual agreement over something rather petty in hindsight, but I was pissed that he'd just disappear like that, and without saying anything. Especially that he'd trick me to do it, too.

"What did you expect," I asked myself aloud. "He's the Goblin King. You can't trust him."

"No kidding," I replied, also out loud. By the way, I'm _not_ schizophrenic and I _don't_ have multiple personalities. Who do you think I am, ya freaks? I held my face in my hands for a few moments, until the ticking of the clock got to me. It reminded me that although there were problems, things still had to be done.

I went to the double-doors at the bottom of the wide steps across from Jareth's throne. Opening one, I called, "Neek! Blar! Qinty!"

The three little goblins snuck out from behind my skirts, as goblins also appear when you're not looking. "Yes," Neek asked.

"Guys, I need your help. Go tell the other goblins it's okay to come back in." I knelt so that I could look the three in the eyes.

Qinty looked back to the throne room. "But His Majesty's not here."

"I know. He's out in the Labyrinth."

"So why are we going to get them?"

"Because the castle needs to be cleaned. I'm going to help arrange that. That's where you get to help."

"I don't understand," Blar complained.

"Just go get them. I'll explain."

"You promise," the stupidest of the three asked.

"Yes, Blar. I promise."

"Okay." He smiled up at me blankly (I sat probably an inch or two over them, still.). "Come on, Neek, Qinty. We've got to go get the goblins!" He skipped out the doors with the others close behind.

I stood next to Jareth's throne. If I were going to be ordering goblins around, I would need to be near the sign of power. That usually helps people notice you. And with goblins, you need all the help you can get.

So when the goblins came back in, they saw me standing near the throne and immediately began to question me. "What are you doing next to Jareth's throne," one of the unfamiliar goblins asked me.

"Yeah," another said. "Jareth sits there. If you sit there, he'll get angry."

"Uh-huh," said yet a third. "And he'll throw you in the Bog. He'd throw _us_ in if _we_ did it!"

"Listen to me for a moment," I called, so everyone could hear me. "His Majesty went out into the Labyrinth. What I want to do is surprise him."

"What's a surprise," was the general question.

"It's something good that gets ready while you're gone and when you come back, it happens."

"Oh. That's a good thing."

"Yes, it is." I took a deep breath, ridding myself of impatience. They were like little children; it took time for them to understand, but if you were patient, firm, and clear, they got the message rather quickly. "What I want to surprise Jareth with is a clean castle. Would you all clean the castle for Jareth?"

"Clean the castle?"

"What for?"

I thought for a moment, trying to come up with a good truth, and if I couldn't, then a good lie. "Because it's dirty. And if Jareth came back to find his throne room clean, don't you think he'd be happy with you? And if he'd be happy because the_ throne room_ were clean, just imagine how much happier he'd be if the _entire castle_ were clean!"

They pondered that for a full frightening minute. Then Qinty said, "It's a good idea. Let's clean for Crystal!"

"Yeah!"

"For Crystal!"

"Let's go!"

As they were accustomed to magic, they weren't at all surprised to turn and find brooms against the wall or buckets of soapy water waiting for the sponges and brushes inside to be used. I was just hoping Jareth didn't notice it; he'd been rather angry with me last time I'd used magic. I had felt his magic; could he feel mine? And if he did, would he notice, or would he think it was just another traveler coming to the Labyrinth? "Okay, guys," I said, bringing myself back to the happenings. "I want you with the brooms to sweep everything down into the pit here first. Nobody start washing yet. Got it?"

"Yep."

"Start sweeping."

Surprisingly, they already knew how to sweep. They did it fast and well. I even had to move a couple of times so they could sweep around me. They climbed up onto the various little goblin perches and swept those, and then the ones on the floor brushed everything to the middle. It fell into the pit, where one of them was waiting. He emerged from the large pile of hay and dirt completely filthy, but shook himself off and climbed out. Unfortunately for him, four or five of his fellows beset him. They took their brooms to him all over, sweeping him off as best they could. The resulting mound of dirt was then pushed into the fire pit. "Is that good," they asked as a group, eager to please me.

"That's wonderful," I congratulated them. "Next come the scrubbers. Scrub everything but the throne and the pit. I want everyone who is _not_ helping wash to leave so we don't get goblin footprints on the wet floor." When they had done so, I turned to the scrubbers. "First things first. Come start over here, behind and around the throne. That way, you can wash from there to the door and let yourselves out while it dries."

"What about you?"

"I was going to help you after I changed my clothes."

"We need you to tell us what to do," one said. I was touched by their realization and knowledge that they did need a leader and their faith that they could do it on their own if someone would just tell them what it was they needed to do.

"But I'll be in your way. That would leave a big spot in the middle of the floor."

"I know," one of them cried. It was a miracle and doubtful, but I let him have his say. "You can sit in Jareth's spot!"

"Yeah! Since we're not s'posed to wash that anyway, it'll be okay."

"You'll be out of our way."

"And you can still tell us what to do!"

It _was_ a simple idea, and it _was_ good one, except that I was afraid Jareth would be upset. I tried to tell them, but they insisted. "You gotta stay here and make sure we do it right!"

And it was thus that I took a reluctant place on the throne. The poor things hadn't remembered they warned me against it earlier. It was rather awkward to turn in my skirt and keep them on track at the beginning, and I was splashed with water from above once or twice. Over many apologies, I explained that it wasn't a lot and that everything was okay. It was actually rather fun. "Keep going," I told them. "You're almost done."

They got the throne room almost shining toward the early afternoon. (The type of stone Jareth had for the castle wasn't the type that could shine, though.) I sent them on to do the same things to the other rooms in the castle besides Jareth's, mine, and the Escher Room. "Don't touch anything you're not sure about. If you don't think it's okay to move it, then don't. Clean around it. And above all, _be careful._ If there are books, _don't_ get them wet. And try not to break anything, please."

I got an enthusiastic acknowledgement and promises to be careful. My instructions were rather firm. I didn't want _them_ to be punished if something happened to something important, and I sure as heck didn't want Jareth angry with _me_ for putting them up to it. I was trying to save _all_ our necks.

The goblins left me on the throne through it all, since they said they knew I was in charge that way. Honestly, I was starting to get used to it. I could see how it would be fun every so often to be their ruler, but I wouldn't want to do it _all_ the time. I'd go crazy, probably. I wondered that Jareth hadn't.

Maybe he had.

By the time the sun was low on the horizon, every goblin I had set to work had come back to me saying that everything was clean. They even took me on a tour to prove it. I have to admit that I was absolutely amazed. I hadn't thought that they would do anything that well or do it without something going wrong. I guess I have to have a little more faith in people, sometimes.

"You did very well," I said, stunned. We were back in the throne room after the tour, and I could do nothing but collapse in the only place for me to sit: on the throne…again. "You did better than I imagined you would. And you know what," I told them conspiratorially as I grinned, "I'm going to have a surprise for _you_ all for doing it."

"A big one," Neek asked me.

"A really big one."

"Yay! A surprise!"

"Wahoo!"

"Yippee!"

Cheers resounded through the hall. Things quieted down somewhat, and then one of them poked the pile of dirt with a toe and asked, "What are we going to do with this? Are we going to leave it here?"

Dozens of little ugly faces turned to me. I answered them slowly while I thought quickly. "Well," I answered, "no. We can't leave it here." A moment of silence. "Can you go find me some wood, someone? I need several pieces of medium-sized wood, and a few large ones."

Ten goblins elected themselves to go get it for me. They returned at sunset, each with his little stubby arms full. "Here you go," they said. "What do we do with it?"

"We were careful not to get any dirt on anything!"

"That's very good," I said. "Just put it in the middle. We're going to have a small bonfire."

They did as I asked. "What for?"

"Well…to get rid of the dirt. We'll burn it away." I was lying through my teeth because the dirt wouldn't burn, but a little magic mixed with the flames wouldn't hurt. And it would save a painful explanation later. "Let me ask you a question. Do you know what marshmallows are?" I explained to them about making marshmallows when they told me no; they grasped it in about five minutes. "And they're very good," I added.

"Really?"

"Yep. Can you bring me…hm…we don't have any sticks…I know!" I snapped my fingers in sudden inspiration. "Bring me a bunch of your little spears." When they did, I showed them how to spear the marshmallows I had produced in basketfuls while they were gone. "You hold them over the fire until they turn light brown. Then you pull the spear back—but be careful not to touch the metal!—and you take them off very carefully." I demonstrated as I instructed. "You have to blow on them so they cool down. That way you won't burn your tongue. That hurts," I added. "I did it before. Then you eat them," I finished, popping one into my mouth. When I swallowed, I said, "Go ahead; _you_ try. And don't sticky anything up. You don't want to have to clean it again."

Exuberant nods met my remark. The ones who weren't around the fire cooking marshmallows put me back on the throne. "So we know where you are," they said. "You can help us if we mess up."

A little goblin named Sqeek came over to me after he had a marshmallow, to thank me personally. "These are really good. I wanna say 'thank you.' "

"You're very welcome, Sqeek," I replied. "But, can you tell me something?"

"What?"

"Why are you all always so…confused…when Jareth is here? You seemed to be fine now."

Sqeek thought about that for a moment. "Well…His Majesty yells a lot. And he never tells us things like you do."

"You mean he never explains?"

He shook his head. "We get mixed up, and he gets angrier for that. And we get more mixed up, and it keeps going like that until we get sent to the Bog. Sometimes we can't do it right 'cause we don't know how."

"I see. So, it's really _his_ fault—you don't have to tell him I said that."

He shook his head again. "I won't, but yeah."

"Thank you, Sqeek." I patted his head. "You can go back to your marshmallows, if you want."

" 'Welcome," he bobbed.

Just then, however, Jareth decided to come back.


	8. Not As Surprised As We Thought

**Chapter Eight: Not As Surprised As We Thought**

Nobody really noticed him arrive, but then, nobody's supposed to. What happened was that one moment they were toasting marshmallows with my supervision, and the next, we heard an angry shout.

"What is the MEANING OF _THIS?!"_

Everyone froze, the same as they had when I had arrived downstairs this morning. Every head turned to the King in the archway across from the throne. Marshmallows fell into the fire or burned on the ends of spears in the time it took for me to realize what happened. My head snapped up and I saw him standing there, and I, too, froze in place.

He was heart-stopping. He wore a black shirt with gray pants, his usual black boots, and a pair of gray gloves. His peasant shirt was open, showing his chest, and one could very much tell, since he now leaned against the side of the arch he stood in. It was a deceptively casual act, as his arms were folded. His hair was wild, as it always was, but it gave him the look of someone half-crazy.

Half-crazy, seething mad, and every inch gorgeous.

His eyes fell upon me, on his throne, and his upswept brows lifted. "And why," he continued, "is little…mortal…_Crystal_ on my throne?" The tone he used cooled the room by ten degrees, I swear.

Terrified, the goblins all swarmed back from him, some carrying their spears with them. Several of the short weapons still had white puffs on the end of them. Some climbed the walls and cowered on their perches, some clambered up onto the throne around me, and a bulky Blar sat in my lap. He was the only one besides tiny Sqeek who could fit; I hugged them close to me, protecting them. My other hand went down to the shoulders of the goblins on the steps and below, the nearest of whom clung to my skirt or hid behind it. They crowded the throne, effectively cutting him off from me.

"Good evening, Your Majesty," I said in a level tone, _almost_ using his title as an insult. "I was teaching the goblins how to cook marshmallows as a surprise for cleaning the castle and they wanted me to—"

"You…were…what," he asked slowly, in the voice that your father asks you things when you know he wants the details so he can punish you more thoroughly.

"We were making marshmallows," Blar said emphatically, as if Jareth should have heard me when I had said it before.

I repressed the urge to shudder at Jareth's question. Icy never was my style. I prefer an argument, or "discussion," as fiery as my hair. "Teaching them how to make marshmallows—you know, the little white puffs of mostly sugar that us powerless little _mortals_ enjoy making at campfires. It's a _human_ tradition." I said it in a tone bordering on mocking—did he not despise mortal habits?—but not quite over the border…yet. He was still glaring, which meant he wanted me to go on. "I asked them to clean the throne room for you, because it was _very_ dirty. They did and then washed the entire castle. I told them that since they had done it, they got a surprise. The marshmallows were that surprise."

"That doesn't explain the fire." He stalked from the arch towards me from my left, around the fire pit. He wisely stayed just out of reach of the goblins. One should never underestimate the power of stupid things in large groups.

"The fire is for toasting the marshmallows, Your Majesty. It is also burning the wood they brought in to make the marshmallows over and the dirt and hay we swept up from the floor and off the walls. I suppose you never even noticed that your throne room is virtually spotless. All you could think about was that someone might have taken your place."

Fire flooded his mismatched eyes and I smirked mentally. I had succeeded in riling the Goblin King. Now we could have a fight _my_ way. Indignation heated his voice. "How dare you insult me? I'll drop you into the Bog of Eternal Stench for that!"

"We'll see who drops whom in a moment."

"You defy me?" He was incredulous.

"Of course. What else would I do to someone so arrogantly blind?" The jewel on the band on my arm grew warm and I could feel my power tingling inside of me. Before Jareth could reply, I sent a peal of thunder across the sky, letting it roll from one side of the castle to the other with a volume that drowned the frightened gasps of the creatures around me. "Would you excuse us, please," I asked politely but firmly of the goblins in general when it had subsided. I didn't really _ask;_ grammatically, I did, but my tone was that of a request that really wasn't one.

"But who'll protect you if we leave?" I was surprised at Neek. He was braver than I had suspected.

"Yeah," the others murmured at random. "We can't leave you with His Majesty alone!"

"He'll send you to the Bog!"

"Just like he said!"

General dissension was setting in, and I didn't want Jareth to think I'd been turning the goblins against him when he was gone or he'd end up sending whole platoons to the Bog in no time at all. "Really, guys. I'll be all right. I can take care of myself. Trust me." I swiftly removed the edge in my voice. "Can you do that? Can you trust me? Please?"

There was a dreadful silence. I began to worry, mostly that Jareth would take it the wrong way before I had time to explain things. He was like that, I had noticed. Blar and Sqeek hopped down from my lap onto a space the others vacated for them. "We trust you," they chimed.

I smiled down at them and whispered, "Thank you."

They bobbed little bows and scampered around the right side of the fire, away from Jareth. A few more followed, and soon there was a steady stream of goblins leaving me. Each of them turned and copied Sqeek and Blar before they passed the arch.

Qinty was the last one to go. "Bye, Crystal," he said after he bowed.

I couldn't help but smile. "Goodbye, Qinty." I was sorry to see him leave. His blind devotion touched me to the bottom of my heart.

Jareth was staring in wonder at me, which I noticed only when I turned to confront him. His anger had suddenly vanished. Mine had too, when I had seen all the little goblins following Blar, Sqeek, and Qinty. "They cleaned my castle? Only because you asked them to?"

My soft answer was "Yes." I stood and stepped down from the throne. "Because I asked them _nicely_. I have to admit that the 'surprise' helped. They cleaned the entire castle—well, they left some things alone, such as your room, the Escher Room, and mine. I didn't want them messing up our rooms or getting lost." Now that we were on the same level, we didn't seem so far apart, as communication went. "Would you like a marshmallow, Your Majesty," I asked a little tentatively.

He seemed puzzled. "I would," he said.

I nodded and found a goblin spear with two uncooked marshmallows on the end. Holding it over the fire, I attracted Jareth's attention. "This is how you cook a marshmallow," I explained gently. "You hold it over the fire until it's golden brown." I made a face. "I just can't understand why some people like them burnt."

The Goblin King smiled, amused. We stood in silence, he watching me as I monitored the white puffs on the end of the spear. His attention unnerved me and so I concentrated fiercely on my task. I often pulled it back to squeeze them carefully, testing to see whether the outsides were crusty and the insides were soft. When they were done, I carefully pulled one off and held it out. "Here you go," I said. "It's a little too warm, so I suggest you blow on it before you eat it to cool it off. Then you just pop it into your mouth." I demonstrated by doing the same with mine.

"These are delicious," he said when he had finished his. "What did you call them?"

After I swallowed, I told him. "They're marshmallows." I wiped the end of the spear with a damp cloth and set it back against the wall. I worked up my courage. "Jareth?"

"Yes, Crystal?"

"I want to apologize for this morning. And for what happened a few moments ago. I shouldn't have accused you like that, I shouldn't have cursed you, and I shouldn't have antagonized you. It's just that I was so angry that you've never been nice to them…and I was angry about you being angry about me using my magic." I looked down at the floor and began to fidget with my hands, something I did when I was nervous.

And I was _very_ nervous right now. Jareth's halfway-open shirt wasn't doing me much good, either; every time I looked at him I couldn't stop the world from disappearing around me.

"Anyway…I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

Jareth came a few steps toward me. "What gave you the idea that I was angry with you?"

I had to fight to answer over my fear and apprehension. "Your eyes," I said, not raising my gaze. "It was your eyes. They had darkened over and you were staring at me and you didn't move and I knew that you had gotten angry. Just like in the Labyrinth. So I got angry back and _that's_ why I fought with you." I looked up at him at last, dreading what I'd find there.

It turned out to be completely different than I expected. What I found was his burning gaze capturing mine, not letting me go.

I found I didn't _want_ to look away.

He was only a few feet from me now and still he took a step or two closer. "I wasn't upset with you, Crystal," he said softly. "I was admiring your strength, your spirit, your power. I was admiring your hair…how it shone so bright in the noon sun—it still does, even in the torchlight." I stopped breathing when he reached out to take my locks in hand, letting them fall in a copper cascade to my chest again. "Breathe," he whispered, the quiet command reminding me of that necessity. I obeyed, unable to contravene. "I was admiring _you."_

I looked down to his pendant, resting on his bare chest. "Jareth…." I began, but found I could not continue. My eyes went back up to his, and I settled a hand on that arm just as the hand that held my hair moved to my cheek. We drew closer, and he continued.

"I was imagining…what it would be like…if…I…."

His mouth settled over mine with incredible gentleness. It was the kiss of a feather. My head began to swim. Blood rushed through my head and I instinctively moved closer to him, increasing the contact. Understanding, he deepened the kiss. I could not help the tiny moan that escaped. The warmth of the smoldering wood not five feet from us was nothing compared to the intense need suddenly burning deep inside. Thinking anything was beyond me. On an impulse, I flicked my tongue out to taste him, at the corner of his mouth. He tasted of marshmallows, smoke, and a faintly earthy scent mixed with the unmistakable male. I did it again.

He shuddered and met me, taste for taste. Heat blossomed in me and I pressed myself closer to him, my hands flattening on his chest. I ached for his touch. One arm came around me and the other went to my waist, at my side, as if answering my unspoken desire.

That shift swung his amulet against my fingers and in response a measure of amber power suddenly swirled within him. I could see it in my mind, dormant power waiting to be loosed. It felt like a pacing lion, waiting for its moment to be unleashed.

I stumbled back, troubled. The rush of air into my lungs began to clear my mind. Everything registered in surreal clarity, including the dull ache that made me want to run back into his arms. The fire crackled unnaturally loudly. The clock ticked like cannon fire. I became aware of my labored breathing and of Jareth's. "I…." I began breathlessly.

"Don't," Jareth growled, trying to attain calm himself. "Just don't." He turned toward the fire and ran a hand through his hair.

I put a hand to my diaphragm in attempt to help steady my breathing. Slowly backing away, I eventually turned and made my way to the staircase. "Good night, Jareth," I said softly, looking back.

He turned as if I had surprised him and then relaxed when he realized what I had said. "Good night…Crystal," he slowly answered. His attention went back to the fire, about as tall as a goblin now. With a gesture from him, it flared once more.

I made my way up to the stairs a little dizzy, confused, and with my mind lingering on that overwhelming kiss. It had evoked feelings I never knew I had, much less that I ever thought I'd feel. Jareth did that to me. It both frightened and excited me.

One thing was for sure, I thought as I opened and closed my door. I definitely wanted it to happen again. I stripped myself of dress and slip efficiently but thoughtfully—my thoughts dwelled on Jareth. My armband shrank itself to a looser bracelet so that I could sleep. I pulled on my green silk nightgown again, imagining the feel of his hands on me again. "Oh, come off it, girl," I told myself as I climbed into bed. "You're going daft, that's all." I closed the curtains and tried to sleep, but my mind wouldn't let me forget the feel of the Goblin King's lips on mine, or the pleasure the touch of his tongue brought to me, or the heat that had flooded me, or the intense need that I felt so close to him. I guess it was about midnight when I had finally pushed those thoughts away so that I could rest, but my dreams tormented me through the hours of darkness beyond.

* * *

The goblins seemed to know when she had gone. As soon as I felt the castle shift so that her room was someplace else, one stuck his head in the door. "Your Majesty?"

"Yes—" What was his name? "—Neek?" I drew myself from my trancelike study of the fire.

He shook a little when he realized I had said his name. Usually I don't care about someone's name unless that person irritates me. "Is….is it all right if we come back in?"

It took a few moments to process the request. I was still rather distracted by the kiss Crystal and I had shared. I shook myself—now was not the time. Looking back to Neek, I said, "Yes. It's all right."

Goblins of every size and shape flooded the room immediately. "Where's Crystal," one of her other two pets asked. It was the stupidest of the three.

I answered with small words. "She went back to her room, to go to sleep."

"Oh," he said, and moved off.

I retired for the night, extinguishing the fire in my room in order to punish myself. The fire running through my veins only burned hotter with every thought of Crystal. I didn't need the flames from the logs to keep me warm. So I sat in my chair and shivered, because everything around me seemed cold without her.

I swore mentally several times. I had become infatuated with her. My thoughts constantly dwelled on her; right now, every thought was on her and her body and her mouth on mine and her power. Gods, the power! I felt the reaction of my power to her when she had touched my pendant, which must have been when I had embraced her, and I felt her power stir in answer. Vibrant emerald green it was, pulsing with all the life and imagination she carried. There was so much potential within her, and she knew how to exploit every bit of it, I could tell.

Swearing again, this time aloud, I paced to my window to watch the Goblin City sleep and laid my hands on the sill. It was midnight, which is to say six-thirty. Every person's thirteen hours to navigate the Labyrinth successfully begin at dawn; on a twenty-six-hour seasonless day, the thirteen hours end at dusk. They never see the city at night; it really is rather….beautiful. That's not an adjective I use often. Everything around here is ugly. Since Crystal came, however, that word has been coming to mind more often.

Crystal. I sighed. Crystal was…amazing. Her jewel-like eyes flashed when she was angry; sparkled when she was glad. The fire of her hair never died. Her ivory skin glowed and she carried herself like a queen. She was entirely self-confident, unafraid to stand up to me, but she had shown herself so susceptible at times. It was as if she knew her weaknesses and was determined to not let them show. She possessed a sort of intense, hypnotic aura, filled with its own power. That power was like the glass spheres I often conjure; it is relatively harmless on its own, but when in the hands of an experienced wielder, it becomes an awesome thing, capable of magic or mayhem. That ability was an integral part of her, yet it was such a _small_ part that it was far more important what she used it for. Her character directed her to use it for purposes that furthered things I didn't—don't—understand. It made me respect her, and desire her. I wanted her to teach me what she knew: what to use power for.

She had somehow managed to get the goblins to clean my castle—_they_ said for her, _she_ said for me. Why? And _how?_ I had only sensed subtle bursts of magic from the castle while I was away; they were certainly not mine, nor any I had left behind. She hadn't taken over their minds because that requires overt magic. Goblins are stupid and need bluntness. So where had the subtlety come in and how _did_ she get them to do it? Did she really talk them into it like she said she did?

And what was with these marshmallows? They were light and sweet, unlike anything I had ever tasted before. But still Crystal's kiss had been sweeter.

I sighed. I was getting nowhere in my thoughts. I bowed my head, and then turned my attention to the admiration of the early-morning stars just as the sound of running footsteps sounded down the hall. Frowning, I went out to see who it was.

It was Crystal, in a green silk nightgown and robe. Her hair was loose, trailing behind her as she ran. When she caught sight of me, she called my name. "Jareth!" She flew into my arms and began to sob hysterically. Her hands fisted with my shirt in them and burrowed her head into my chest.

The only thing I could think to do was to put my arms around her, so I did. I discovered that I liked it; I tightened my embrace. She did not seem to notice. "What is it, Crystal," I asked softly, leaving one hand to hold her while the other stroked her head. "What's the matter?" I didn't want the castle hearing what happened, so I transported us to my room, rather than disturbing her by making her walk. "What's the matter, Crystal," I asked again.

"It was awful," she replied between sobs. "I had such a nightmare…." She broke off, crying.

I shushed her. "Everything will be fine," I said. "It's okay. It was just a dream." I let her cry, as it was apparently the only way to help this pass. To my surprise, she let go my shirt with one hand and gripped my pendant. Unseen amber power rushed out to her before I could stop it, but not like I expected. It wrapped itself around her, comforting her in some strange way. I let it go, directing it to cocoon her and calm her. Troubled green power laced with gratefulness extended itself around me, seeking the comfort that I had to offer. We were a swirling mass of power. The overall sensation was not unpleasant.

We stood like that for a time. Crystal soon quieted, but tears still fell and her body still trembled. She tried to speak, to explain what had happened. Her voice was still exhausted from the distress. "Hush," I murmured. "There's no need to tell me what happened. Everything's all right." With subtle directions through my power, I instructed her sit down. She still clung to me; I sat down next to her. It was a bit awkward, but we managed so that I was leaning back against the wall and she sat facing it, her legs stretched out along the wall and her upper body still in my embrace. Her tears began afresh but there was no more sobbing, only the shivers of relief. I noticed eventually that she had fallen asleep. I resolved that I would not disturb her, so I simply sat cradling her as she slept. Her grasp had relaxed, but she still held my talisman. As long as it gave her peace, I did not mind. It gave me a chance to gaze on her countenance, beautiful in sleep despite the tear streaks running down it.

Comforted by dreamless sleep, her face showed none of the startling maturity or wisdom it did when she was awake. Both qualities, to the extremes they were, were far beyond her years, yet she carried them without complaint, merely a resignation and a depression that overpowered even her strong soul from time to time. "Such a terrible burden, for one so innocent and young."

Gazing at her oddly vulnerable form resting so peacefully in the pale light, my heart stirred within me, and I felt a great swell of emotion like to only one other time in my life—no, twice, I corrected myself. With great reluctance, I shoved those two incidents into the past and looked down to Crystal's sleeping form. And when the sun had risen, I had made a choice for my future.


End file.
